The HRD Ministry will hold a high- level probe into the recent incidents of death of students in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Congress MP KC Venugopal on Sunday said he has been informed by Additional Secretary R Subramaniam that a team, headed by a senior ministry official, would be appointed to look into the incidents and that the teachers from other IITs would be part of the team. The Lok sabha MP from Alappuzha in Kerala, Venugopal said it was conveyed to him by during his telephonic talks with the officer over the death of a Keralite student in IIT-K.
Nidhin, a fourth-year aerospace engineering student of IIT-K, was found hanging from the ceiling of his room on Friday. "The official assured me that a team headed by a director of the ministry will be appointed to probe the cases of alleged suicides happening in IIT-Kharagpur," he said here.
Venugopal said he has written to HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, seeking his intervention on the matter.
Venugopal said he was informed that the ministry has received an internal investigation report prepared by the IIT-Kharagpur on Nidhin's death.
The MP said he demanded a high-level probe in view of other such incidents in the IIT. Nidhin was the third student to commit suicide this year.
The IIT campus reported the first suicide on January 16, when Lokesh Meena from Rajasthan jumped on the tracks and was hit by a train at Jakpur station.
The second took place on March 30 when the body of a youth from Andhra Pradesh, Sana Sree Raj, was found on the train tracks, barely 500 metres from the IIT campus.
